This year I have been able to join a new research team in the research project “Transnational Muslim Marriages: Wellbeing, Law and Gender” (Academy of Finland 2013-2017) led by Dr Marja Tiilikainen, see blogs.helsinki.fi/transnationalmuslimmarriages for more information. After obtaining my doctoral degree, which happened last month, I will be able to work as a post-doctoral researcher in this project. I will start with co-writing (together with Sanna Mustasaari) a review article on research done on legal and policy approaches to practices of Islamic family law in Northern and Western European States.

The public defence of my doctoral thesis “Relational Subjects: Family relations, law and gender in the European Court of Human Rights” will be held on Friday 13th May in the Small Hall (Pieni juhlasali) in the Main Building of the University of Helsinki. Paul Johnson , Professor of Sociology at the University of York (UK) will act as my opponent. More details may be found in the events calendar of the University of Helsinki:

E-thesis: summaries in English and Finnish

Open access pdf publication: Please click here

Print-on-demand service by the publisher:

Relational Subjects

My doctoral dissertation in Sociology “Relational Subjects: Family Relations, Law and Gender in the European Court of Human Rights” (working title) will soon be handed in for pre-examination at the University of Helsinki. In the Finnish system, the pre-examination takes at least three months, after which, depending on the comments and evaluation of two academically distinguished pre-examiners, the dissertation is recommended for public defense – or not. So, more news in 2016!

Since 2014, I have been a member in the SKY Doctoral Programme for Gender, Culture and Society of the University of Helsinki. The doctoral programme hosts a number of PhD-level research projects in various disciplines such as sociology, law and multidisciplinary gender studies. As I am finalising my English-language monograph in 2015, I will also present papers on my research in events of the SKY doctoral programme this year.

See: http://www.helsinki.fi/doctoral-programme/gender-culture-society

Together with Prof. Anne Kovalainen (Management, University of Turku) we have written an article on the gender composition of Boards of Directors and Management Teams in Finnish listed companies after a recommendation in 2010 from Corporate Governance Finland, a self-regulatory body of listed companies in Finland. The recommendation states that both women and men should occupy positions of power in these bodies. The article acts as a follow-up study to a report we wrote together with Prof. Anne Holli (Politics, University of Helsinki) in 2009 on gender in politics and business in Finland for a joint Nordic research project managed by NIKK, the Nordic Gender Institute.

See: http://intersentia.be/nl/gender-quotas-for-company-boards.html/

Genie-tutkimusryhmän ja muiden tutkijoiden kirjoittama artikkelikokoelma Tasa-arvo toisin nähtynä ilmestyy loppuvuodesta Gaudeamukselta. Artikkelikokoelma on kirjoitettu oppikirjaksi tasa-arvoa ja yhdenvertaisuutta käsitteleville kursseille naisoikeuden oppiaineessa useampana vuonna järjestetyn Tasa-arvo: perusoikeus ja politiikan haaste -kurssin pohjalta.

Johanna Kantola, Kevät Nousiainen & Milja Saari (toim.): Tasa-arvo toisin nähtynä

The Finnish Graduate School in Human Rights Research accepted me as a doctoral candidate and granted two years of funding for me in November 2009. The new doctoral school will begin its activities in January 2010 and run until the end of 2013. The Graduate School cooperates closely with the Law in a Changing World Graduate School (Oikeus muuttuvassa maailmassa -tutkijakoulu, OMM), where I was accepted as a ‘status member’, meaning that I will be invited to take part in OMM activities.

An article related to my doctoral research, ‘Individual adoption by non-heterosexuals and the order of family life in the European Court of Human Rights’ has been published in the Journal of Law and Society (2009, Winter Issue, vol. 36: 4). It analyses two cases from the European Court of Human Rights, Fretté v. France and E.B. v. France that deal with adoption by single non-heterosexual applicants. I look at these cases from a sociological perspective and place them in a framework of biological, legal, social and ‘symbolic’ (gendered) family relations.